63 cases seek access to locked Apple, Google phones, ACLU says

The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday it has uncovered 63 confirmed cases in which federal agencies have sought court orders to force Apple or Google to unlock phones to gain access to data.

The group gleaned the information through Freedom of Information requests that it filed jointly with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. The interactive map will be updated as more cases are uncovered, according to the blog by ACLU attorney Eliza Sweren-Becker.

All 63 confirmed cases involved a request by a government agency that relied on the All Writs Act to compel Apple or Google to provide help in accessing data on a mobile device, Sweren-Becker said. Some of the cases go back to 2008 and primarily are investigations into drug-related crimes.

In addition to the 63 cases, the ACLU knows of 13 others that are included in the map, although their docket numbers or some other details aren't known, the blog said.

Sweren-Becker said the ACLU's disclosure of multiple cases points out a "sustained government effort to exercise novel law enforcement power."

The FBI revealed on Monday that it was able to gain access to an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attack without Apple's help. Subsequently, a federal judge in that case vacated her iPhone hack order against Apple.

The ACLU posted the data partly "to show how widespread the government's attempts to get tech firms to bypass phone security are," an ACLU spokesman said by email. "It also makes clear how inevitable another court showdown is" in addition to the San Bernardino case.

"The FBI wants you to think that it will use the All Writs Act only in extraordinary cases to force tech companies to assist in the unlocking of phones," Sweren-Becker wrote in her blog. "Turns out, these kinds of orders have actually become quite ordinary."

Asked to respond to the ACLU's disclosures and comments, an FBI spokesman referred to earlier FBI statements showing the agency's concerns going back 18 months about how encrypted data is used to hide communications by criminals and terrorists.

In another undated statement, the FBI reiterates its view that "the FBI supports strong encryption."

A Computerworld review of the ACLU disclosures found that several federal agencies, in addition to the FBI, have sought court orders to unlock devices. They include the U.S. Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Land Management. For example, the BLM sought a court order in Oregon as part of a drug investigation in 2012 at a marijuana grow site near Medford, Ore.